


(Not So) Cool Kids

by agna333



Category: Produce 101 (TV), UP10TION, X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Beware, Comedy, Everyone Is Gay, Friendship goals, Gratuous use of flashbacks, If I met them as kids I would kill them dead, Kim Hyeonbin is the Coolest, Lee Jinhyuk is Whipped, M/M, Out of Character, There's a bit of not very explicit homophobia in play in ch. 4, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, Wooseok is Woosatan, Yuvin's sister is a warning all on it's own, i don't care, like a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 08:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agna333/pseuds/agna333
Summary: Wooseok meets some of the kids he grew up with when they were young. He might have been the Nerd and they the supposed Cool kids. It doesn't matter though. They grew up. And now he has so much blackmail material.Doesn't help that Jinhyuk grew up to be unfairly attractive. He might spare him. Just a bit.





	1. The Nerd

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fanfic written by my sister, who doesn't own a AO3 account and refuses to make one. I apparently whined for long enough she wrote me this.
> 
> At first it was supposed to be a one-shot. Then two-shots. We are at 6 now. We will see where this takes us :D.
> 
> Not beta'd, all mistakes are ours.

There wasn't much that Wooseok remembered or particularly dwelt on from his younger years. Though there was this one particular memory that stuck in his head for some reason. And that was when one of his neighbourhood kids, Jinhyuk, shouted at him over the fence that he’s a loser.

Wooseok supposed that at that time Jinhyuk was part of the cool kids. As much as a bunch of eleven years olds could be called cool. Jinhyuk, Seungyoun, Kookheon and Yuvin however tried their best as they threw water balloons at passers-by on particularly hot days, swam in neighbours’ pools without permission and built a secret bunker in a big tree on the corner of their street. Even looking back Wooseok wouldn't call himself a loser but he supposed he was a bit boring compared to them. At that time he simply preferred to read his book over the company of others and his strong glasses did give him more of a nerd-look together with his smaller more fragile form.

Years after he wondered what about that day and memory was so special that he still got reminded of it. After all he didn't feel like the loser in that situation as Jinhyuk had a cast around his broken leg after he fell down from their secret three hide-out. Turned out he had a fight with Seungyoun over what should be their official group name.

It was now several years later and Wooseok has exchanged his glasses for contact lenses, grew into his large eyes (that as a kid made him look like a human squirrel) and finally stopped dressing like a fifty-year-old college professor. That might have been a mistake. To be perfectly honest, Wooseok would far much prefer being called a loser several times than being on a stupid college party.

"Oh, come on, hyung. At least try to look like you want to be here." Yohan whined next to him shaking him a bit while furiously looking around.

"Why am I here anyway? Pretty sure, that if that guy invited you here you don't need a wingman." Wooseok pointedly ignored a large guy beckoning him forward with a finger, while suggestively licking his lips and winking. Gross.

"Hyung, please. What if I don't find him? What if he's already dating someone and I'm gonna look like a desperate idiot? What if-" Yohan dramatically gasped, "he doesn’t like guys and I misunderstood him really badly?"

"Didn't you say he wears a rainbow pride bracelet?"

"Well yeah but what if...you know. He just likes how it looks?"

Wooseok looked at his friend in disbelief. He knew Yohan got nervous easily but this was just ridiculous.

Yohan was actually a catch. He was far too hyper for Wooseok’s taste, but even he had to admit that the younger boy’s broad chest and muscles from years of Taekwondo did things even to him. He also wore that black shirt tonight that emphasized his shoulders while teasing at his chest when Yohan turned just the right way. Wooseok was pretty sure that once they found Yohan’s dream man, the lack of attraction will be the last of their problems.

"Let's just go find the guy so I can go back home with the knowledge that you got laid, okay?"

They made their way to the kitchen of the huge house, Yohan still looking around. "I don't think that's going to happen. I mean-"

"Yohan! Here you are!" A taller handsome male made his way towards them. Wooseok could go home. Splendid. "I'm so glad you could make it! I like your shirt!"

Yohan's nervous tick disappeared and he smiled at the newcomer. "Yuvin-hyung! Hi."

Wooseok didn't particularly mind that the two ignored him in favour of doing googly eyes at each other for a bit as he tilted his head in thought. Yuvin was definitely a familiar name. And when he carefully looked at the man he was seeing the resemblance to his childhood neighbour. Though the front teeth he had knocked at seven when he tried to swing on a rope like Tarzan and proceeded to hit a tree with his face have grown back now nicely.

In that moment Yohan finally turned to him. "And this is my friend Kim Wooseok. I hope you don't mind I took him with me."

Yuvin smiled and offered his hand in greeting. "Of course not. I'm Song Yuvin, nice to meet you."

Wooseok smiled slightly back and took the offered hand. "Wooseok. Can I just ask you something out of curiosity? Have you perhaps lived in the Sinam-ri village?"

"Uh, yes? How-" Yuvin furrowed his eyebrows in thought and then his face brightened. "Oh my god! You're Kim Wooseok from the 25th house right? Wow, what a small world."

Yohan looked at them in slight confusion. "You know each other?"

Wooseok shrugged his shoulders. "We just lived in the same village when we were young."

“Well, I think this is as good an opportunity to celebrate as any," Yuvin took two bottles of amber liquid from one of the higher shelves, "everyone is in one of the upper rooms if you would like to join us." Wooseok once again just shrugged his shoulders but Yohan brightly nodded.

Yuvin started to lead them to the second floor. "Oh right, Wooseok, I almost forgot, Kookheon, Seungyoun and Jinhyuk are here too. You remember them?"

"Yeah sure. I do." Wooseok smirked to himself. What a small world indeed. He wondered if he could still one-up them, just like old times. Probably yes. But he won’t be able to say so for sure until he tries. 

They entered a room which Wooseok would describe as “for the cool kids” with a tinge of irony. This was a place obviously only for the few invited and the atmosphere was laid-back, quieter than downstairs but friendly. Wooseok was just glad he didn't smell any weed.

"Hey, guys, got us the whiskey. And this is Yohan. I told you he would come." Yuvin smiled at the younger boy, who waved shyly with a light cute blush. Wooseok smirked again when he heard the stage whisper of a guy on his right who he was pretty sure was Kookheon. "You were freaking out just fifteen minutes ago that he's definitely not coming."

Yuvin either didn't hear him or smoothly ignored him. "And this is Wooseok. Kookheon, Seungyoun, you guys remember Wooseok? From home?"

Kookheon turned to him with a newly found interest and a spark of recognition in his eyes. "Wow, Wooseok? It's been what. 10 years?"

Wooseok shook his hand. "About that I think."

It took a bit longer for Seungyoun to remember. Though it was probably the combination of alcohol and a guy in a sleeveless shirt sitting beside him. "Didn't you wear glasses?" He asked, as he squinted at him suspiciously.

Wooseok chuckled a bit. "I did."

"Ooh, I know then, I know!" Seungyoun clapped excitedly, obviously proud at his great memory. There were things that remained unchanged. But he had to slightly adjust his opinion about this as Seungyoun looked at his sleeveless shirt guy companion, and then immediately cleared his throat and tried to look cool again. Almost unchanged.

Yuvin offered him and Yohan a drink which they gratefully accepted. "Where's Jinhyuk anyway?" Yuvin asked as he finally teared his gaze away from Yohan to notice his friend missing from the room.

"In the bathroom I think? Should be here any second." A tall guy with a fringe almost covering his eyes piped in from the couch. As if magically summoned, the door opened and a tall handsome man with a bright smile entered.

"Here he is. Wooseok, you remember Jinhyuk?" At Kookheon's words Wooseok smiled slightly.

Jinhyuk was just starting to drink from his glass trying to get a grasp on the conversation. His eyes had a pretty shape, his fingers around the glass were long and graceful and Wooseok suddenly realized he kinda wanted to find out how his long limbs would feel around his in a hug. Or a make-out session. Whichever. Wooseok was also very very petty, and he couldn’t just leave it like that.

"Yeah, I remember him. Was it when we were eleven you called me a loser, Jinhyuk?"

The tall boy finally completely turned his full attention to him. As if in slow motion Wooseok saw how Jinhyuk's eyes widened and not only in recognition. He then proceeded to choke and spit all of the drink in his mouth. Right on Wooseok's face of course. Like in dumb comedies, Wooseok thought amused, as he watched Jinhyuk relegated to a coughing fit his watering eyes still stuck on Wooseok. He wiped his face, fighting a smirk. This was too easy.

"I suppose you do remember then."

Jinhyuk just embarrassingly mumbled something affirmative to a resounding laughter from the whole room.

Wooseok sat down on a vacant chair beside Kookheon, crossing his legs and with the conversation in the room once again picking up he calmly sipped his drink. To his great amusement Jinhyuk kept stealing glances at him, tipping over a lamp and tripping over his own feet in the process. Wooseok was enjoying himself quite a bit.

It was later when the sleeveless shirt guy sat beside him - Hangyul, as Wooseok learned - and curiously looked at him. "So," he started, "if I understand it right you know Seungyoun and the others from before."

Wooseok nodded and his smile turned a bit more sinister. "Wanna hear some childhood stories?" 

He might have accidentally said it loudly enough for the whole room to hear him. Accidentally, on purpose. Or something. As he watched at least half of the room huddle around his chair like a pack of children waiting for a bedtime story (all of them clutching glasses of whisky instead of milk, but who was he to dwell on details), Wooseok sent a wide smile Jinhyuk’s way. 

Jinhyuk swallowed in worry. Wooseok lightly bit his lip. Who was the loser now, huh?


	2. The Loser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jinhyuk is very sure his life is over. Does Wooseok share his opinion?

One of Jinhyuk's earliest childhood memories was when he was five. He and his friends were excited because that day a new kid their age moved to the village. And Jinhyuk was the first one to see the newbie. The young Jinhyuk excitedly run towards a kid sitting in front of his new house, thick book on his lap. And oh, that was so cool! 'Cause he could already read!

"Hi, I'm Jinhyuk!"

The other looked up and blinked at him through his thick glasses, which made his eyes look almost twice the size. "Um... I'm Wooseok." he whispered in the end, fingers fiddling with the book.

"Nice to meet you!" Jinhyuk grinned at him, showing off the fact his front milk-tooth recently fell out and had yet to be replaced by the adult version. "Do you want to go play with me and my friends? We wanted to go to the park to play with ball Kookheon just got. And hey," Jinhyuk gasped excitedly at the new idea, "we could also do a campfire! We could totally start it with your glasses!" Jinhyuk was already making plans in his head. Wooseok looked smart and could read so he could even read the instructions on the firework Seungyoun had and try to light it and-

"No way! You can't start a fire! I'm gonna tell mom!"

Jinhyuk looked on shocked as Wooseok hugged his book to his chest and run into the house.

\-----------------------

Jinhyuk's expression turned sour after remembering the previous night and he pulled his legs towards him, forming a very down-trodden ball inside their bathtub. He wasn't sure what exactly the reason he spit the drink on Wooseok's face was. Was it that he was the most gorgeous human being Jinhyuk ever laid his eyes on? Or was it that the human incarnation of an angel before him was actually the scrawny kid with thick glasses he last saw when they were thirteen when Wooseok's family moved away to Seoul? Maybe a combination of the two. Doesn't change the horrible reality that came after.

Kookheon, sitting on a closed toilet, groaned as the hangover headache started to kick in. "You know what? I'm actually really thankful that Hyunbin couldn't come."

"At least you two are already dating. Pretty sure he would just laugh at you." Yuvin was perching on the bathtub edge, unhappily looking at his phone, like he was hoping Yohan would really send him a text at six in the morning after a whole night spent on a party.

Seungyoun, sitting beside Yuvin on the bathroom floor, frowned and nodded. "Yeah, not like it would completely ruin your chances."

Kookheon hummed. "It was quite a bloodbath for the two of you, wasn't it.”

Yuvin put his phone beside him and buried his face in his hands. "Don't even remind me."

Jinhyuk looked to the ceiling in thought. "I never expected to meet Wooseok again."

"I mean who would."

"I can't believe he remembers so much."

"Strange, right?"

"I can't believe he looks so beautiful."

"...What?"

Seungyoun frowned at him. "Wait, if you actually thought he's hot, then..."

"Then I didn't even need the dumb stories to make a huge fool of myself." Jinhyuk unhappily slid further down into the bathtub.

\----------------------

"Wanna hear some childhood stories?"

Jinhyuk noticed the slightly evil glint in Wooseok's eyes. He did NOT remember that from when they were young. He really didn’t have any right to look this hot like this.

The proceeding shout from Byungchan of "OMG! Do tell!" and a dangerous smile stretching on Hangyul's face made a warning bell ring inside Jinhyuk's mind. To his horror Kookheon and Seungyoun were too drunk to realize the danger and Yuvin just looked at Yohan like a love-sick puppy agreeing to whatever the younger said. Since Yohan was nodding his head wildly with an excited grin on his face, Yuvin didn’t seem to see any problems with the massacre that was sure to happen here very soon.

This was bad. Jinhyuk made a pleading gesture towards Seungwoo-hyung, but the elder's smile just widened and he pointedly looked away. Traitor. All the others were already too drunk or were begging Wooseok to begin already, like Byungchan. Jinhyuk quietly slid into a corner preparing to curl into an embarrassed ball of shame.

"So, first of all they of course had a secret hide-out on a tree."

"Oh yeah!" Kookheon and Seungyoun smiled brightly at the memory. "We made it when we were twelve and once even smuggled a bottle of vodka there."

Jinhyuk just raised his head towards the heaven and prayed for a flood or something of the sorts to come. There were just giving the Satan more ammunition.

"Yeah, the super-secret hide-out on the corner of the main street on a big tree with a sign of '200 years-old, protected by the Republic of Korea'. No one knew about it, you're right."

Seungyoun and Kookheon were just now starting to realize. Yuvin just stood beside Yohan, who was clutching his sleeve in one hand and hiding the giggles with the other. Yuvin was watching him like he was parting with a loved one before going to a sure-die battle.

"And the smuggled bottle. I don't think anyone is able to forget that one. Did you drink third of it before Seungyoun threw up on the mayor when he was just passing below?"

As Hangyul seemed like he was having the time of his life, Seungyoun got redder and redder in the face.

Jinhyuk then saw the self-satisfied smirk when almost everyone sat closer to Wooseok to hear everything better. Jinhyuk hugged his knees to his chest.

"I think it was the year you were named the Fighting Hamsters. Or was it the month of Flying Dolphins?"

\------------------

After the party ended, a horrifying two weeks came where every single one of their friends started calling them Fighting Dolphins or any other combination of their embarrassing childhood club names. Byungchan was especially enjoying himself and even roped Seungwoo into it. They drew a cartoonish picture of a hamster with wings and now both of them had that as their phone background.

The other problem was that Jinhyuk started to see Wooseok everywhere he went. He had no idea how he managed to miss him as Wooseok looked so good all the time and they were attending the same university. How he never noticed him before was a mystery.

Jinhyuk noticed Wooseok sitting with Yohan across the room in the café they usually visited. This was maybe the fifth time Jinhyuk saw Wooseok in the last week alone, but besides the occasional hi (shy from Jinhyuk and smug from Wooseok) they didn't really talk.

Jinhyuk tore his eyes away from the other when Hyunbin joined their table. "You know, you really do look like a bunch of dumb hamsters." He made a munching sound with hands clenched in front of his face.

"Even you are betraying me. Why?" Kookheon was pouting.

Hyunbin looked them over incredulously. "You mean besides the situation when I walk in and instead anyone including my boyfriend saying hi, Seungyoun-hyung is having a stare-off with his phone, probably waiting for Hangyul to text him back and Jinhyuk.hyung and Yuvin-hyung dreamily staring at the same table across the room? I don't really know."

Seungyoun cleared his throat and slowly hid his phone in his pocket.

Yuvin pouted. "He's just not talking to me as much as before."

Hyunbin raised his eyebrows. "Well, it is the exams week." Yuvin pouted more.

Jinhyuk sighed. With the three of them moping around and Kookheon's dumb smile directed at his boyfriend they did look like a bunch of losers.

Jinhyuk then looked back at Wooseok's table and almost choked on his drink when he noticed the other's stare directed at him. Wooseok had his head tilted and was clearly deep in thoughts. Jinhyuk unconsciously straightened his back.

\-------------------

Jinhyuk happily looked at the green square lighted behind one of his final tests. His exams were done and over with. He passed. No one cares about what marks he actually got anyway.

He walked out of the building and immediately froze. There, on the campus square was Wooseok, sitting alone on one of the benches. Jinhyuk contemplated between running away, ignoring him or walking over and trying to say hi. But then he puffed his chest. He passed all his exams! He could totally talk to his crush! He quickly walked over to Wooseok before he lost his courage.

"Um, hi. Can I sit here?"

Wooseok looked up at him. He looked slightly tired, the finals’ week also taking a bit of a toll on him, but even then, he looked proper pristine and absolutely perfect. Especially when he gave Jinhyuk that small smile, like he knew a secret nobody else did.

"Sure, go ahead."

Jinhyuk sat down and nervously fixed his shirt. His insides curled when he looked at Wooseok and the other had this annoying expectant smile on his face. Jinhyuk cleared his throat. He originally just wanted to have some meaningless small talk, but hey, what the hell.

"So, um. Do you want to go somewhere? Sometime? To I don't know... get coffee?"

"Hm, I'm not really fond of big outings. Even if it would make Yohan happy."

"I meant, just the two of us. Like... yeah. Just us."

"Hm, I suppose it would be nice to make more friends..."

"Like a date! I want to go out with you!"

"Aah." There was this spark in Wooseok's eyes with not a hint of surprise to be found anywhere. Jinhyuk couldn't decide if he dreaded it or couldn't get enough of it.

"I don't really drink coffee."

Jinhyuk deflated. This was obviously a polite answer to show disinterest. He supposed he probably overestimated the occasional glance Wooseok send his way when they saw each other. It's not like it was the end of the world. But he was still glad Yuvin bought those tubs of ice-cream that were now waiting for his miserable self at their apartment.

"But we could go out on a dinner I suppose." Wooseok's smile brightened. "Only if you want to of course."

"I, yeah, yes! I would love to!" Jinhyuk smiled happily back.

That went so much better than he expected.

\---------------------------------

Two weeks later as they were walking slowly home from the restaurant, they visited on their third date, Jinhyuk bit lightly on his lip. At Wooseok’s inquiring look he sighed.

"You know, everyone is moping around right now. Kookheon is unhappy that Hyunbin has that year-long nightmare of a project and doesn't have much time. But the rest are mostly down over how you embarrassed them."

"Oh, come on. You're all gonna survive. You had worse." Wooseok stopped them to throw his hands around Jinhyuk’s neck.

"I know. Yuvin and Seungyoun are just unhappy about their crushes. They think they have no chance now. Said I should take revenge on you for them and not to date you." Jinhyuk smiled, lightly nosing into Wooseok’s cheek.

"So unbelievably petty."

"I don't know. They weren’t salty about being called a loser by an eleven-year-old. Are you sure you’re the one to talk?"

Wooseok laughed, the puff of air washing over Jinhyuk’s nose. "Ok, point taken. But I don't think you have to worry about them. Yohan is totally lost for Yuvin. He's just really panicky. And I don't really know Hangyul but he was the one who kept muttering ‘cute’ under his breath whenever I mentioned Seungyoun being a child so I would be very much surprised if he wasn't at least interested."

Jinhyuk hummed satisfied and pecked Wooseok lightly on the tip of his nose.

"But if you want," Wooseok continued, standing up on his toes to get closer, "I think I could totally try to help them."

"I don't know. What do you have in mind?"

This time when that evil calculating smile appeared on Wooseok's face Jinhyuk couldn't wait for what came out of that wicked mind of his new boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, there is (probably) no tree in Sinam-ri. We made that up. Sorry.
> 
> I'm afraid this is mostly it for the itty gritty Weishin stuff, but that only leaves us with more room for the other pairings! And don't worry, Wooseok will continue being Woosatan. Next chapter: Yuvin!


	3. The Loud One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter basically has the format that the rest of this fic will have too. I do hope you like YoYu and panicky Yohan as much as we do :).

There were a few incidents from their childhood that really got stuck in Yuvin’s memory. The time when Jinhyuk fell out of their secret hide-out and broke his leg. That was the whole group name debacle, that all of them made a pact over Jinhyuk’s cast to never ever ever mention ever again. 

Then there was of course that time they all fought over who was going to sit behind Wooseok (the person in class with the best marks) during their end of the year exam in the hopes they would be able to copy from him. Yuvin and Seungyoun ended up winning (Kookheon didn’t seem to care that much and Jinhyuk had yet to hit his growth spurt and was therefore a good five centimetres smaller than the rest) and grinned at Wooseok, who looked at them with a distinctly uncomfortable (and lightly disgusted) look. 

Turned out, Wooseok was petty enough to fill out two sets of tests, one he gave to the teacher at the end and the other one he (far too willingly, now that Yuvin was looking back on it) passed behind him to the two. All four of them got detention for cheating (having all copied the same wrong answer to every question) and had to clean their baseball team playing field. Wooseok spent the whole afternoon watching them from the bleachers and eating popcorn with a very smug look on his face. At least they got the Cool Game out of that.

And then there was the day Yuvin turned fourteen.

They had a secret stash of alcohol in one of the old abandoned houses but that day Seungyoun hit a jackpot. He got his hands on mint-flavoured cigarettes. None of them ever smoked before (quite a miracle in their case) and were excited to try. After all, all the cool guys in films smoked, right?

That day, luck was on their side as Yuvin's parents left the house to attend some fancy party in the neighbouring village. The only one guarding them was Yuvin's twenty-year-old sister. She, of course, just threw them a stink eye, told them to behave and to call only in absolute emergencies and left to spend the night over at her boyfriend's place.

Which to their ears sounded like: "Do whatever you want, just don't die." Close enough.

At around eleven they sneaked out and quickly headed towards to their secret stash. They didn't fortunately hide anything in their tree hide-out. It wasn't easy to climb up undetected in an absolute darkness as they found out two years ago.

They felt really cool as they jumped around the empty streets and quietly whispered about the situation feeling like secret agents.

The last part of the journey they needed to be extra careful. Their local police station was just two streets away. And while they were quite familiar with the local police officer (especially Seungyoun) it wasn't necessarily a good relationship (though he did thank them once for letting him take his salary with a clean conscience).

They successfully finished their journey undetected. Kookheon turned on his flashlight and let Jinhyuk take out their stash from under one of the old rocks far enough from the broken glass of the windows.

Honestly, Yuvin wasn't entirely sure if a bottle of gin, half a bottle of vodka and three cans of beer could be called a stash but who cares. It was enough for tonight.

They sat down in a circle on some of the old chairs they brought from the only other abandoned house in the village (which was close to Yuvin's home and his mom once found them there so they had to relocate). Yuvin and Seungyoun then each opened a beer and after taking a sip offered to Kookheon and Jinhyuk.

Jinhyuk stared at the gin in thought. "You know," he said after returning the can to Yuvin, "Whenever my parents drink gin they mix it with something."

"Like what?" Kookheon looked at him doubtfully.

"Like tonic or juice I think? They say it tastes better with something."

"My dad never mixes anything." Seungyoun said. "Says it's weak and barbaric to do so."

Yuvin remembered the horrible taste of vodka and grimaced. "I think I'd rather be barbaric if it's gonna taste better."

Kookheon then looked at what they had to work with. "Well, we can only mix the gin with vodka or beer."

Seungyoun smirked. "You mean vodka AND beer."

Yuvin wasn't entirely sure which alcohol went well with what, but he was quite certain this wasn't it. So of course they had to try it. They drank a bit more of the two beers, so only about half was left in each can and then filled the rest with vodka and gin.

Yuvin supposed the taste was a bit better that pure vodka but still wasn't something to run home about.

Kookheon also scrunched his face when he took a sip, but when he then took a second one he remarked: "You know, doesn't taste as bad the second time."

They did finish it in the end quite quickly. Yuvin's hands were shaking slightly, his view of the world tilting.

"You know," he heard Jinhyuk say, "we still got those cigarettes we wanted to try."

"Oh, right!" Seungyoun almost fell down from his chair as he took the pack out. Kookheon made a loud hushing sound after which he started to giggle violently. The others quickly joined him.

"But we should still have... something to drink it with." Jinhyuk said after they calmed down a bit.

"What?" Yuvin didn't quite understand at first but then helped the other to pour half of the one remaining beer to one of the empty cans. They of course spilled fourth of it which then Seungyoun had to replace with the gin. Kookheon didn't stand up from the chair, content to just watch them and sometimes let out a loud snort, when they spilled too much of the alcohol. After they were done, he took out the lighter he brought from home.

They lighted the first stick, once again getting reduced to a fit of giggles after Jinhyuk took his first drag and almost coughed out his lung.

"How is it?" Yuvin eyed the cig which was shaking in his unsteady hand, after it was carefully passed to him.

"Minty." Jinhyuk squeezed out between coughs.

"Right." It was indeed minty. And... smoky. His coughing was then changed to laughing when Kookheon once again tried to hush them only to overbalance on his chair and fall to the floor. He took a deep gulp of their cocktail to stop his throat from feeling like it was peeling away from dryness. The alcohol didn’t help much. 

The world was kind of blurry and a whole lot of fun as Yuvin passed the cigarette on to Seungyoun. Kookheon stayed lying down, giggling to himself and waving at a spider on the ceiling.

"Shouldn’t we sing or something? I feel like singing." Seungyoun took a drag and tried to hold his breath and look cool, before coughing just like the others.

Yuvin then remembered that one time he was offered a place in the school's choir. "I know some songs."

\------------------

The police station was brightly lit and Yuvin's head started to hurt even before his sister stepped inside. He didn't even need to raise his head to know she was pissed off beyond belief. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"

The police officer turned towards her. "Oh, you must be-"

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOUR STUPIDITY! ARE YOU INSANE?! AND YOUR FRIENDS AREN'T ANY BETTER!"

Yuvin felt Jinhyuk beside him slide further down as if that would make him somehow invisible.

"YOU FUCKING GO AND DRINK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT LIKE YOU DON'T CARE!"

Yuvin dared to look at his friends beside him and felt a slight tingle of relief. They all looked exactly like he felt. Like beat-up dogs.

"LIKE, HOW OLD DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO BE RUNNING AROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?!"

The police officer stood up and tried to calm Yuvin's sister down. "Miss, it is not so bad-"

"NOT SO BAD?! IT'S HORRIBLE! YOU SHOULD ALL GO TO JAIL! TO A PENITENTIARY!"

Jinhyuk and Kookheon started crying.

"I LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR ONE NIGHT AND YOU GO AND GET DRUNK AND DISTURB THE WHOLE VILLAGE!"

"Hey, hey," the officer tried again, "I'm sure they learned their lesson. And they will never do it again. Right, boys?" he hurriedly turned to them as Yuvin's sister was starting to take another deep breath.

"No." Yuvin quietly answered.

"REPLY WHEN ASKED!"

"NO, SIR!" They all chorused, Jinhyuk almost choking on his tears.

"Well, then. Good." the police officer smiled. "That's done then. You can take them home."

Kookheon wiped his eyes. "We're not gonna get a record?"

"Well, as I said, I'm sure you learned your lesson."

Yuvin's sister just huffed annoyed and jerked her head towards the exit in a clear sign for them to follow her. They truly never did this again.

\--------------

Yuvin pouted unhappily as he took out his phone for the third time in the last five minutes to check the messages.

Encouraged by how Seungyoun actually got together with Hangyul, Yuvin texted Yohan this morning to ask the younger out for a coffee. It was now after lunch and he was still waiting for an answer.

Maybe he was busy? The exam period ended good three weeks ago, but there were still ongoing projects to sort out and the second half of the semester was slowly picking up pace again. Could that be it? Or maybe Yohan was actually ignoring him? Wanting to have nothing to do with him? That could be possible. Yuvin pouted more.

"Why do you look like a walking tower of doom?" Jinhyuk brightly smiled at him.

"Don't want to hear anything about towers from you." Yuvin fired back, but it was half-hearted.

"Is it about Yohan?"

Yuvin just looked away without answering.

Jinhyuk's smile brightened. "I think you shouldn't worry so much. After all-"

"YUVIN-HYUNG!"

Yuvin turned to the loud familiar voice as Jinhyuk stepped back a bit. 

“-he looks like he worries enough for the both of you as it is.”

He saw Yohan running towards him in full speed. Before Yuvin could even brace for an impact the former athlete was already hugging him, mumbling something about how life was so unfair.

Yuvin was quite confused. "Uh... Hi, Yohan?" he blushed as the confusion was taken over by the warmth of Yohan's arms.

Yohan pulled himself back a bit, his eyes watering. "Hyung, you don't need to act anymore. I know everything."

"... You do?"

"Yes, Wooseok-hyung told me."

On Wooseok's name a warning bell rang inside Yuvin's head, but Yohan already continued. "I know about the cancer, hyung. It's so terrible." he sobbed a little.

"I... I don't have cancer?"

"Oh, hyung. Stop denying. I already know how strong you are." Yohan hugged him again and Yuvin's mind went blank. He just noticed from the corner of his eye how Wooseok leisurely joined Jinhyuk on the side-lines. And was Jinhyuk filming this?

Yohan once again pulled away from him to look Yuvin in the eye. "But you know, hyung, I can totally support you, you just-" another loud sob escaped Yohan's lips, "You just can't go away to war!" he was almost crying now. "I know it's hard, but I like you so much! I can totally take care of you! But you can't just leave me like this!" Another bone-crushing hug followed.

Yuvin wasn't sure if this was a paradise or his worst nightmare. But judging from the Satan's amused chuckles on his right, definitely a nightmare.

"Um, Yohan? I don't really have a cancer. And I'm most definitely not leaving."

"But... but Wooseok-hyung said-"

Yuvin grabbed Yohan by his shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. "Wooseok is a liar!" A displeased sound came from his right and Yuvin slightly backtracked. "You must have misunderstood Wooseok!"

There was a minute of silence. "So you're not leaving?"

"No."

"And you're not sick?"

"Healthy as I can be. No cancer whatsoever."

Yohan paused for another moment. Then his face turned the brightest scarlet colour and he hid his face in his hands. "Oh my god!"

"Uh... I know this is kind of a bad timing." Yuvin let go of Yohan's shoulders. "But I do like you too."

\---------------

Seungyoun and Kookheok were wiping tears of laughter from their eyes.

"This is the best thing ever!" Seungyoun clapped his hands excitedly.

"I can't believe you did this without us." Kookheon was clutching his hurting stomach from too much laugher.

Jinhyuk grinned. "No worries. Even the mastermind missed the beginning."

Wooseok just shrugged his shoulders. "Yohan does run really fast when it matters." then after a small pause he added, "When he thinks it matters."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Seungyoun!
> 
> Have you been cringeying as much as I did, when the sentence "Seungyoun got his hands on mint-flavoured cigarettes" and "my parents always mix gin with something"? The sense of foreboreding was very strong with this one...


	4. The Coolest One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said Seungyoun is going to be next, but we decided to go with Kookheon in the end, it makes more sense time-line wise. Not that the time-line makes sense otherwise. But you know... We had to at least make an attempt.
> 
> It was beta'd by me. So it looks that way. If you find any mistakes, please let us know in the comments :).

By some miracle, Kookheon was the only child with a single parent out of the whole village for as long as he remembered. And while he had a great relationship with his father, he was mostly home alone because of the job his dad had in Seoul. Kookheon never minded it, often sleeping over at his friends’ houses. It was probably one of the reasons for maturing earlier than his peers though. Part of that was figuring out he was gay right around when he turned fifteen, a process greatly helped along by one of the older boys from a neighbouring village.

The Friday after his first kiss, he waited for his father to return from work. He wasn't disgusted with himself or felt unnatural at any point, but he did want to know for sure there were people who wouldn't mind, instead of just making assumptions. His father just nodded at this new information and then awkwardly told him he can't really give him advice on that, but to use a condom.

His friends were equally as fine with it as his father was. The only thing that changed with them was the fact they stopped showing him the old Playboy magazines Seungyoun "borrowed" from his father. He kept seeing the boy (his first boyfriend now) and everything went fine for several weeks. Kookheon was slowly getting comfortable again.

Then one day someone saw him and his boyfriend kissing behind the old gym. Kookheon never found out who it was, but nevertheless they did not keep it to themselves. Within a week the whole school knew.

The reactions were predictable in hindsight. Some started to ignore him, some whispered behind his back and some started to shout homophobic slurs at him across the corridor. Kookheon knew about the possibility of this happening and even to an extent expected it, but some of the more hostile reactions still shocked him. He started to receive bad grades in math, their teacher pointedly ignoring any of his questions.

He could always count on his friends though. After some of their older schoolmates tried to actually openly bully Kookheon they decided to devise a plan. The plan was incredibly dumb and had no way of working (as Kookheon tried to tell the three of them many times) but it was absolutely genius in their eyes. And so it happened, all three of them claimed to be gay too so that everyone had to divide their forces to more places and to have the strength of the pack. Or some bullshit like that.

Seungyoun always waited until their petite English teacher Yumi, who was extremely anti-violence, was the one to supervise the corridor on recess. Then he as seductively as he could waved at the school bullies and proceeded to laugh in their faces when they received a detention for trying to punch him.

Jinhyuk who just recently got a growth spurt and looked like a giant praying mantis was waiving his hands in the faces of anyone in his close vicinity and shouting: "I'm gay! What you gonna do about it!" or "Come at me, bro!" and then laughing at them from his by at least ten centimetres higher position, when he grabbed their shoulders and held them in at a distance. It was apparently the only defence move his father managed to teach him, and Jinhyuk used it to it’s full advantage.

Yuvin read through the whole book of school regulations and when he found a loop-hole in the form of unspecified colour for the school shirt he quickly bought textile colours. They then spend a fantastic Saturday afternoon colouring their uniform shirts bright rainbow on Yuvin's backyard. This was the first time they were ever called into the headmaster's office (though they were no strangers to the mayor's one). Yuvin wasn't from a lawyer's family for nothing though and while still losing all the arguments against his mother and older sister, he did actually learn something from them. They got away with it.

The school year ended and his boyfriend graduated and moved away to Seoul. Kookheon was sad but they did grow a little awkward recently so it wasn't that much of a terrible break-up.

A new school year started, school regulations were one word richer and things got better. They were second-years now which meant there were now not the youngest in school and they finally grew just a bit taller (though they never caught up to Jinhyuk). The only thing still unchanged was their math teacher who kept giving all four of them failing grades in their rainbow coloured notebooks.

It was one of these days that Kookheon actually called them together after school to have one of their very few serious talks.

"You know, you don't have to keep saying you're gay. You should get out of it now, before the math dude fails all of us."

Yuvin scrunched his face. "I don't know. I'm still thinking about it, you have to wait."

"Think about what exactly."

"Well, if this has any actual weight of course. What if I took it back and then realised that I actually am gay. That would be so unprofessional! And my mom would kill me."

"Dude, you... do you even know anything? How don’t you know if you’re gay or not? It’s not that hard!"

Jinhyuk snorted. "I just kissed a girl for the first time this weekend, man. Of course we have no idea."

"Well then take it back!"

Seungyoun looked at him lazily. "I have thought about it and I think that I don't care."

"Please, tell me at least that you care about your education."

All three of them gave him blank looks and then turned their conversation to something else. And that was it. Kookheon sighed.

They all did fail the mid-term math test. Which however didn't catch them unprepared as they sneaked out the following night to their teacher's house.

What followed ended up resulting in something, that became one of Kookheon's fondest memories.

As they all sat in the headmaster's office, he glanced to his right. Seungyoun's mother was scrolling through something on her phone not even glancing at her son.

"Your father's pissed."

Seungyoun just winced at that.

"So you will be grounded for the next three weeks with no exceptions."

Seungyoun shrugged his shoulders and then nodded. "That's fair."

"It's done then. Talk to me on the 20th."

Yuvin's mother was furious. "I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DARE TO DISCRIMINATE MY GAY SON-"

"Mom, I told you. I don't think I'm completely gay. I mean, I don't think I should choose-"

"Hush, child, while I try to save your education. Where was I... yes. THE DISCRIMINATION! DON’T THINK I WON’T SUE YOU, BECAUSE YOU CAN BET THIS SCHOOL I WILL IF YOU EVEN ATTEMPT TO EXPEL MY SON!”

Jinhyuk was trying to tell his parents that it wasn't their fault that this is nothing and it's just one huge misunderstanding, while his parents weren't sure who to pay attention to. To their babbling son, the video on the teacher’s laptop clearly showing the four of them vandalising the teacher's very new and very expensive car with neon spray colours, to Yuvin's bi awakening or Yuvin's mother shouting about "DEFINITELY FILLING A LAWSUIT, JUST YOU WAIT!"

"You have quite the friends."

Kookheon turned to his father with a bright and happy smile. "I know."

\--------------------

They were transferred in the end with no record. For that they had to write thank you cards to Yuvin's mother. The school was further away and Jinhyuk's father had to drive them there every day. As a long-term punishment, at Fridays no one picked them up and they had to walk the whole way back. But it was fine. It was just for the next year and a half. They could manage.

Kookheon was reminded about that day in the headmaster's office often. When a year later, for example, Yuvin brought home his first girlfriend, and a month later a boyfriend. Neither of those relationships lasted very long.

Kookheon asked about it later. The answer made him laugh.

"You know, I had to prove a point to my mother. And let's be honest, I didn't really have much time to do that with us moving to Seoul for universities and all."

Another time was with Seungyoun. After his girlfriend cheated on him and then ditched him for a basketball player, he got back at her by sleeping with said basketball player. He then broke up with both of them. Just to be sure. Kookheon prepared him his very first break-up party in their apartment. Seungyoun appreciated it greatly and later drunkenly complained about not being able to swear of guys or girls, because he ruined them both for himself in one fell swoop. Kookheon was worried, until he found out a week later Seungyoun was already dating somebody from his English grammar class.

Jinhyuk was probably the funniest one to Kookheon. For quite some time everyone, including Jinhyuk, thought he was the only one of them (mostly) completely straight. Kookheon then found him looking at one of gay porn videos on the elder's laptop. Ten minutes later, the taller boy came out of the room to a waiting Kookheon with a completely crimson face and sat down on the couch next to him.

"It never worked before, you know."

Kookheon just nodded.

"And you all did show me quite a bit of different ones."

Kookheon hummed in thought. Then he remembered the particular actors in that movie and Jinhyuk's own pretty doll-like librarian girlfriend. "Well, you seem to have a specific type."

Jinhyuk sank further down into the couch. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this."

They did throw him an awakening party. Though Kookheon had to stop Seungyoun from inviting Jinhyuk's girlfriend. He liked her and was then disappointed when she broke up with Jinhyuk several months later. Luckily, not because of the whole awakening thing.

\-------------------

Kookheon shook his head to clear his thoughts and focus on the present. He watched Jinhyuk as he tried to explain the rules of the Cool game to their dear better halves. Yohan was asking various questions, that seemed to have Jinhyuk slightly flustered. Wooseok finally lost his patience.

"It’s simple, Yohan. You just need to throw a stone from this corner of the football field to the other one. And there the stone needs to land in that garbage bin." 

“I don’t believe you.” Sniffed Yohan and turned back towards a suddenly flustered Jinhyuk to ask more questions.

“Come on, it’s been three months! Do you really have to still go on about it? When are you going to stop?”

“Let me think… When are you going to stop being a pathological liar?” Even to an actual observer, Yohan was very obviously kidding and very much enjoying getting back at his friend.

“Maybe when you stop being a petulant child!”

“You’re the one to talk about being petty. Aren’t you still calling Jinhyuk-hyung a loser from time to time?”

Jinhyuk chuckled and hugged a squirming Wooseok from behind. “It’s a nickname to show me he loves me.” Behind them, Seungyoun theatrically gagged and Kookheon chuckled.

"So, what's the price?" finally interjected Hangyul, already weighing a middle-sized rock in his hand.

"You'll be the coolest person ever."

Wooseok smirked sarcastically. "Sounds incredibly appealing."

"Hey, the coolest person gets a lot of benefits for the next twenty years." Yuvin laughed from his position on the ground.

"Oh my god, when did you come up with this?"

"During one of our detentions, when we were eleven." Wooseok ah-ed in understanding. His smirk let them know very clearly he remembered which detention that was. Jinhyuk sighed.

"Did anyone ever win this?" Yohan asked curiously.

Yuvin stood up and took his first stone. "Nope. But you can be the first, babe.” Yohan adopted a determined look and marched towards the starting line, cheeks suspiciously red.

Kookheon just laughed when within a minute all seven of them were throwing stones across the field, all of course failing to hit the inside of the bin.

"Hyung! Kookheon-hyung!"

Kookheon turned around. "Oh! Hyunbin! There you are." He gave him a quick peck on the lips to greet him and turned back towards the fierce competition.

"What do you mean by that? The movie starts in fifteen minutes! We need to get going if we want to be on time!"

"I know, no worries. just a few more." Kookheon's stone missed the target again by several meters.

"I finally finish my project and have time after almost half a year and you want to spend it just throwing rocks across the field?" Hyunbin whined, nervously checking his watch.

"It's not just throwing rocks," Seungyoun turned to the younger, "you need to hit that garbage bin over there."

Hyunbin observed everyone chucking rocks over the field in disbelief. Then he picked up a piece and swung his arm hard. It was a perfect throw as the stone tinged on the bottom of the bin heard across the whole field.

Hyunbin then grabbed Kookheon's hand and started pulling his boyfriend away, other following slowly in a stunned silence. "There, done. Can we go now? We’re gonna miss the start!"

After a few meters, Kookheon triumphantly turned around and mouthed at his friends. "I'm dating the coolest person, you salty losers."

Instead of an answer he got a series of shaken fists, rolled eyes and grumbles. Kookheon laughed happily and turned back to hurry to the cinema.

They made it on time of course. Because the coolest person wouldn't allow anything else.


	5. The Troublemaker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Seungyoun being an agent of chaos. Also, please don't play around with fireworks. The results are not fun.

Seungyoun always sorted his memories by his scars. And he had quite a lot. The first major injury he ever got was when he was three. He and Kookheon were at the time the only friend the other had, so when new kids with similar tastes in toys joined them in the sandbox it was like second Christmas.

Jinhyuk and Yuvin had just moved to Sinam-ri and while Seungyoun didn't entirely understand the concept of moving, he understood those two were going to be here tomorrow too. And what better way to get to know each other than show them his new truck? It was a big wooden monster as large as him, that his father made for him last week while loudly swearing at anyone and anything that even came close. It was big, nice and Seungyoun could almost fit in the back so he could "drive" around. Of course, he took it with him the next day. As expected they were all awed, even Kookheon.

And then Seungyoun had an awesome idea. There was this small hill just behind his house. All four of them could go over to his place and try the truck out right there.

After a bit of shuffling and talking between the parents they were all allowed to go. Of course, some "Be careful" were shouted behind them but they were already on their way and Seungyoun wasn’t really listening anyway.

Seungyoun carefully sat in the truck and accompanied by loud cheering from Yuvin and excited clapping from Jinhyuk and Kookheon and rolled down the hill in no time. They pulled the truck back up and it was the others’ turn.

After two full rounds Seungyoun thought that he could definitely go faster. Which would be so much cooler. He urged the other three to push the truck hard from behind. The added speed was definitely there. And the big rock at the end of the road was also very much there.

While Kookheon visited Seungyoun in the hospital on the weekend with his father, Jinhyuk came to see him, crying and clinging to his parents the very next day and Yuvin on Friday.

At that point Seungyoun knew that these were friends for life (thought at three it just sounded cool to him because he heard it in one TV show and didn't entirely understand the concept). And while the cast on his broken arm did get a bit in the way, his new best friends drew colourful pictures all over it so it was fine.

Though he did overhear his parents right after they paid for his hospital bill that his originally planned younger sibling was cancelled. Seungyoun was apparently more than enough on his own. Seungyoun wasn't sure what to think of it at first but in the end was kind of proud. Of course he was more than enough!

\-------------------

His probably most humiliating moment came in first grade. He didn’t even really have a scar from that, just a deep emotional trauma (as he loudly shouted at anyone who dared to bring up that particular half a year following, when they briefly returned for their very-pleasant-thank-you five-year elementary school reunion (seriously, why people even attended those? Not even the booze was free)). 

A few weeks previous, Jinhyuk came to them, sullenly complaining about their new neighbour slash classmate (as they found out the following morning). Apparently, said boy wasn’t any fun, was really boring, was a tattle-tale, but also seemed to be kinda cool, as he could already read and therefore could have read the instruction on those fireworks Seungyoun got from his uncle a few weeks ago and managed to keep secret from his parents. 

At this, Seungyoun scoffed. “Who needs a stupid tattle-tale! Who needs reading! I saw dad set them up loads of times on New Year’s, we can do this!” While Jinhyuk and Yuvin cheered, Kookheon looked for a few seconds like he was going to protest. And then joined his other friends in cheering too. Kookheon was the smartest out of the four of them, so there wasn’t definitely anything to worry about.

In hindsight, they were very lucky Seungyoun ended up with just scorched off eyebrows, burned off fringe and cheeks red like he got a really bad sunburn. He could have like… Died or something. 

That didn’t make the very humiliating half a year until his eyebrows grew back in school any less bearable. To make matters worse, as punishment, his mother refused to fix his haircut. 

He still sometimes dreamed of the smug look Wooseok kept sending him over his shoulder, whenever the teacher mentioned the importance of reading the instructions in class. 

\------------------

One of the only days that he clearly remembered even though he didn't injure himself was when someone else did. One of the perks of his twelfth birthday was that he got a brand-new cool bike. It was blue, had really good brakes and was bigger than Kookheon's. Which automatically meant better of course.

Just behind the village was this one long serpentine of a road that they were always afraid to drive down full-speed. It was partially because of the road and partially because none of their previous bikes were the best quality, most often being hand-me-downs from the family (like Yuvin's that had steel rack behind his seat for unknown purposes, but was great for tying old cans on strings to it).

Seungyoun was however so sure of the quality of his new bike that he boasted to his friends how anyone could drive it down full-speed no problem. As was then the usual with them when Seungyoun had an idea, Yuvin and Jinhyuk immediately agreed enthusiastically while Kookheon thought for a bit, before joining their cheering with a smile and a "what could go wrong". (it quite often went very wrong many times before but Kookheon never mentioned anything anyway).

As Jinhyuk and Seungyoun got detention that afternoon for accidently telling their English teacher in class to 'fuck off' because Wooseok persuaded them it meant something else, they had to postpone their plan a bit. There was also a new movie being screened in the nearby town so they decided to go there first and then ride down the serpentine road on the way back.

The way back was long, they made many stops and couldn't be bothered to hurry. They were sleeping over at Kookheon's house and his father was away in Seoul on some last minute business. So no one waited for them, no one was sending panicked messages written in caps-lock about where they were. Life was good.

Because of the longer way back they finally arrived to the serpentine road close to midnight. They didn't mind, the moon was shining and they knew the surroundings of Sinam-ri like the back of their hands. And also, they couldn't back down from a challenge. That was the important one.

"So," Kookheon doubtfully looked at the first sharp turn of the road, "who's gonna go first?"

Seungyoun looked at each of them. No one was volunteering. "I think we should play paper-scissors-rock to decide."

"That's fair." Jinhyuk nodded. It was the first time he didn't seem that happy to win but Yuvin and Seungyoun were already loudly cheering for him.

Kookheon had that slightly doubtful expression but obviously dismissed his worries once again to cheer on Jinhyuk as was getting on Seungyoun's bike.

"Right." Jinhyuk looked determined.

Seungyoun loudly counted for him like it was an official race. 

"AND GO!"

Jinhuyk started. The three of them watched him take on the first turn.

"He was definitely braking." Yuvin said.

"Bet you're going to be braking far more than him." Kookheon replied.

But before Yuvin could reply that he will definitely not, a loud crash echoed just slightly below them. They stayed quiet all frozen in place.

"Uh, guys?" Jinhyuk shouted. "I think something's wrong!" There was a moment of silence. "I mean, I'm pretty sure this is blood." That woke the others up as they started running down towards their friend.

Seungyoun's bike was lying on its side, one of the tires flattened and damaged with the handlebars bend into a weird shape. At first they didn't see Jinhyuk. A strange sound then could be heard from beside one of the trees closest to the road. Jinhyuk was sitting there obviously dazed as he stared at the dark blood on his hand. The blood was also covering half of his face and was still pouring out from a wound on his upper forehead.

The boys of course panicked hard. Kookheon jumped almost a metre in the air before running towards Jinhyuk. Yuvin started looking around and shouting something about tissue and how his mom's gonna kill them. Seungyoun was undecided as he kept looking at Jinhyuk, back at the road where their bikes were and searching his pockets for something to stop the bleeding.

Jinhyuk smiled at them. "Hey, guys, calm down. I'm fine." he then turned to wipe his hand into his trousers. The whole look wasn't very reassuring.

"Uh..." Kookheon grabbed his jacket and some tissues that Yuvin managed to find and tried to stop the already slowing down trickling of blood (surprisingly quite successfully).

Seungyoung then grabbed Yuvin. "We need to get him to a doctor." and started to drag him up towards their bikes.

"But where are we going to find one? The hospital is pretty far. We can’t get there on foot or by bike!"

"There’s a doctor in the village!"

"Seriously? Where?"

They were now grabbing the three bikes to quickly lead them back down.

"There was that one dude that once caught us in his pool. He had that Dr. before his name. That's a doctor, right? He also had those butchering things in the house. I saw them in his windows!"

"Oh! I know where!" They reached where Jinhyuk and Kookheon were.

Seungyoun didn't remember much from the journey back. He rode on Jinhyuk's bike and was making sure Jinhyuk didn't fall from behind Yuvin. After arriving to their destination, he pushed and held the bell button of the house he was pretty sure was doctor's, not caring about the hour. He let the bell go only a full minute later when the door opened and revealed a man in his pyjamas with a very pissed off expression.

"You're a doctor, right?" Seungyoun asked right after he let go of the bell. He probably looked desperate enough that the man didn't start to yell at him right away.

"A veterinarian." He replied after a moment of silence almost automatically.

Seungyoun quickly pointed to Jinhyuk who just tried to smile and despite the drying blood covering half of his face said: "Hi, I'm Jinhyuk. I'm fine."

The veterinarian looked unimpressed.

\--------------

The veterinarian returned about an hour later after driving Jinhyuk to a hospital. The three still waiting on the steps of his house looked up in anticipation.

He tiredly looked at the time. "Your friend is brave. He started crying only after he was informed, he was staying in the hospital and they were contacting his parents. He didn’t even whimper, when they were doing his stitches. But he's absolutely fine. Now go home, kids. You can visit him tomorrow."

Kookheon mastered himself to thank him before the man shut the door. They then shamefully had to return to get Seungyoun's bike and got home after four in the morning. When they woke up they all were successfully grounded with Seungyoun getting an extra lecture from his father about what a menace he was. Which was kind of fair, since he did break the new bike. His father did fix it though after a lot of cursing in the garage.

Jinhyuk was released the day after and just had to return to get the stitches removed. Overall it didn't end so badly. And they could at least laugh at themselves years later.

\------------

Seungyoun was part nervous, part determined. While he and his friends were the worst victims Wooseok’s retelling of their childhood stories, last week Yuvin was able to send them pictures 'live from the show' as Yohan' mother was happy her oldest child finally brought someone home and was determined to let him know everything about her dear son. And what a set of glorious pictures those were. Yohan was truly a wonderous child. Seungyoun couldn't wait to hear about the stories behind some of the pictures.

But that also meant that Hangyul was one of the only ones who's childhood's they knew next to nothing about. Sure, Seungyoun knew Hangyul was adopted, but that didn't mean he never did anything dumb, right? Everyone did at least once.

Throughout the lunch his nervousness had lessened quite a bit. Hangyul's parents were nice and friendly and by his boyfriend's pleased smile, Seungyoun was also doing a good job regarding first impressions.

But the opportunity to learn more just wasn't there. It was only after some coffee that he put a bit more attention on the younger brother. The fourteen year old Dohyon was shy and quiet at first, but as the afternoon went on and he got forced into conversation by the rest of the family he loosened up a bit. Seungyoun's hopes were high because Dohyon and Hangyul seemed to share a typical brotherly bond. And what other things were siblings good for than spilling dirt on the other? That is at least what he learned from Yuvin's family. Jinhyuk couldn't count, because his far younger brother Jinwoo was... well... too cute for any dirt.

But considering the frequent teasing that came from not only Hanguyl's side but after a bit Dohyon's too, Seungyoun was pretty sure there could be something found from this source.

Hangyul's parents ended up convincing them to stay for dinner but had to leave for a little pre-planned meeting with their neighbours, promising to be back soon. Hangyul then left to get them more drinks.

Seungyoun sweetly smiled at the young teen. "So, Dohyon, you know your brother well, right?"

Dohyon shrugged his shoulders. "I guess."

"Then I'm sure you have quite a number of funny stories to tell about Hangyul."

Dohyon looked at his older brother who just joined them. "Well," he started, and Hangyul curiously looked at Seungyoun to maybe find the topic of the current conversation. But to his horror, Seungyoun was looking at Dohyon with a bright expectant smile and a mischievous spark in his eyes. "There was this one time he got lost in a cave because he tried to prove to a six year old there are no ghosts there."

Hangyul scrunched his face. "You were the six year old!"

"You still got lost! And then had to be led out by the park’s rescuers."

"Ooh." Seungyoun's smile widened extremely interested and he dodged Hangyul's kick under the table. "Do tell more."

Dohyon looked at his brother, whose face was promising slow and painful death, and turned back to Seungyoun. "I'm pretty sure we have some pictures from when he was like… ten. He liked to dress up like Danny Zuko from Grease."

Dohyon swiftly dodged Hangyul's hand. "You little-"

"I'm taller than you!"

"Whatever!" Hangyul grumbled, slowly giving up.

Seungyoun felt incredibly pleased with himself as he turned on the camera on his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might have noticed, the neat little six for the final amount of chapters went away. Can I say I'm surprised? No. No, I am not. Can I say I'm disappointed? Also no, definitely not. Look out for cute Hyunbin next :).


	6. The Smart One

Hyunbin would never describe himself as handsome, smart or particularly confident. What he however often did, that was applauded by his family and many of his peers, was that he took initiative. Made the first move and challenged himself. He wasn't that proud of it and often felt extremely nauseous from nervousness whenever he was the first to sign up for something or was the one to actually confess to his crush. He wouldn't call this behaviour admirable. But the thought of regret was always too unpleasant to not do something. And honestly, when it came to his crushes he never really hoped the other party would make the move first.

It was a bit different with Kookheon though. Kookheon was two years older than him, really nice, helpful, popular and really good-looking. Hyunbin ended up with him a group project because he decided to take an advanced subject just to challenge himself. While that didn’t end up being such a genius move on his part, he couldn't really bring himself to regret it. Kookheon was really kind even though the other two members of their group were practically useless.

Kookheon himself wasn't in such a great place at that point. Hyunbin didn't really know all the details, but he knew Kookheon just went through some kind of bad break-up from a long term relationship.

Hyunbin hurried to the library with two cups of coffee. He really hoped Kookheon liked coffee. Or Hyunbin would look like an idiot.

"Hyunbin! Over here!" Kookheon whisper-shouted over half the library and waved at the younger.

Hyunbin smiled, quickly joined him and without a word slid the coffee towards the other. Kookheon looked surprised but before he could ask about it Hyunbin already took out his laptop. "What about the other two?" Hyunbin nervously looked at Kookheon who was opening the lid of the cup (what was he doing? Couldn't he tell that it was coffee? Or what was it?). "It's coffee by the way."

"Oh! I knew it!" Kookheon smiled victoriously. "They're not coming. Or at least one is definitely not. The other is not replying to my messages. Thanks by the way." he smiled.

"And, um... hyung? Can I ask you what happened to your leg?" Hyunbin gestured towards the cast on the elder’s leg.

Kookheon seemed to redden a bit. "I... uh... fell down the stairs."

\---------

Hyunbin was quite intimidated by Kookheon's friends. All of them were tall, handsome and together were the life of every party. Hyunbin wasn't really scared of them but he definitely wouldn't just walk up to them and talk like it was nothing.

So, when they joined him and Kookheon on the courtyard and started to make plans for the evening, Hyunbin didn't really feel like going to wherever they planned despite Kookheon politely inviting him along. He would just slow his sunbaes down in their partying, he was sure.

What really confused him was when all three of them threw him a strange look once and then he just heard when Seungyoun (he was pretty sure that was Seungyoun) looked at Kookheon and said: "I thought you were the smart one."

"What are you talking about?" Kookheon sounded genuinely confused.

Yuvin nodded. "Yeah, you're quite clueless for someone so clever."

Hyunbin didn't hear more, but was still pretty sure they were talking about him liking Kookheon. They definitely saw his lovestruck glances towards his older friend! That was so embarrassing. 

\-----------

It was about two months later and Hyunbin was absolutely certain Kookheon had to know Hyunbin liked him. Hyunbin did all those things like bringing him coffee and texting him about random things (he didn't do that too much, but Kookheon always replied quite enthusiastically and kept their conversations going for considerable amount of time). Not to mention the smug looks and wiggling eyebrows Kookheon's friends gave them whenever they saw him (especially Jinhyuk looked incredibly unsettling while doing that).

So, since yesterday they turned in their project (with just the two of them signed on the top) he decided it was a good time to ask Kookheon out. It was just the two of them and both will have some free time in the upcoming weeks. To either spent together or bury himself in somebody’s yard if he was turned down.

"Uh, hyung? Would you go out with me sometime?" Hyunbin nervously looked at him. Kookheon had to know about his feelings already, and the fact that he kept talking to him despite that was a good sign, but that didn't mean that-

Kookheon stopped in his tracks looking incredibly surprised by the question. Like he wasn't expecting it at all. If he had something in his hands he would drop it for sure. Hyunbin could almost see the gears turning in the elder's head and he smiled awkwardly. Well, this was an epic fail. Good thing they already finished the project. Now what to say to try and save this? Will he be able to get a shovel at the home depot near his house?

Suddenly Kookheon smiled brightly. "Sure! Let's do that! I mean, if it's meant like I think it's meant." 

Hyunbin grinned victoriously but then immediately furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "How exactly do you think it's meant?"

"Why would you ask me that? It's... it's meant like that, right?"

"It sounds so wrong when you say it like this."

"So it is meant like that."

Hyunbin groaned into his hands. "Yes."

"Great! Are you free on Friday?"

\-----------------

"And that is the story of how I found my light in the darkness." Kookheon wiped an imaginary tear from his eye.

Yuvin laughed. "I still can't believe you didn't notice he liked you back then."

Jinhyuk hummed. "Yeah. Literally everyone knew except you."

Yohan smiled. "Such nice memories." Him and Yuvin exchanged a smile and switched the plates with their half-eaten cakes. Yuvin took the first bite from Yohan’s caramel treat and groaned. Yohan gave him a smug look. “I told you this one will be better.”

"Talking about memories," Seungyoun pointedly looked at Hyunbin, "only he is left. So. Pictures, now."

Hyunbin looked up from his pancake. "I thought that by being the coolest person I'm exempt from admiting dumb and embarrassing things." Everyone groaned. 

Wooseok sniffed, moved another few inches to his left to now basically sit on Jinhyuk’s lap and promptly stole his fork to nimble on his cake. Jinhyuk made an affronted sound. “You said you didn’t feel like eating anything sweet!”

Wooseok primly wiped a bit of cream from his chin and gave his boyfriend a deadpan look. “Oh please. You naïve oblivious loser.” Jinhyuk huffed, but opened his mouth for Wooseok to give him a large piece of strawberry.

"Damn, that's true." Seungyoun unhappily chewed on his own pancake while Hangyul absentmindedly patted his head in commiseration, not looking up from his phone, where he was probably texting his brother.

Hyunbin laughed. "But Kookheon-hyung actually asked me about it last week and I don't really mind." He opened the photo gallery on his phone. "I asked my mom to send me some. I mean, you really think that with these ears I didn't look hilarious? I might have some pictures from my second-grade masked ball… I went as Dumbo, if you were wondering."

\------------

_ **Outtake** _

"By the way, I always wanted to ask. That one time at the beginning of the semester, did you really fall down the stairs?"

"Oh. Uh... no. The guys actually threw me a party to cheer me up from the break-up and I got really drunk and then thought that Seungyoun's idea of dancing at the children's playground on top of a spinning carousel was a fantastic plan."

"Ah. No wonder you didn't want to tell me that. I would be embarrassed too."

"Shut up. At that time you still thought I was cool and I really wanted to keep it that way."

"You do realise you kept sending me those cute kitty gifs as responses to project plans. And forgot to take the professor out of the conversation for at least five of those."

"... That doesn't count."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, Hangyul and his and Seungyoun's lovestory. It includes merepeople and stuff. Keep a look out! :)


	7. The Accepting One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read on about Hangyul's and Seungyoun's lovestory and watch our chapter titles make less and less sense! Yay!

They were only a handful of people in Hangyul's life that he loved dearly with all his heart. It also wasn’t a coincidence they were the ones who could surprise Hangyul and make him laugh.

The very first people that received the honour of his unconditional love were his parents. He was seven, which was a bit older than most to be adopted and he was well aware of that. But it still happened and nothing made him happier than realising that he's going to be a part of a real family now.

Almost a year later came another important person and that was his younger brother. Ever since he joined the family, Dohyon adored Hangyul and Hangyul forgave him for literally anything the child did. Whenever Dohyon would approach his brother on his short still slightly wobbly legs, Hangyul would just crouch and wait calmly until the kid reached him. The toddler usually gave him a piece of candy insisting to put it right into Hangyul’s mouth. But sometimes he would pretend to have candy and then wiped a full fist of mud on his brother’s face and run away screaming and giggling. You never really knew with Dohyon.

When people met Hangyul, their impression mostly was that he was a laid-back type until you made him angry and then he would shoot you in the back alley. He also apparently looked like he turned thirty somewhere around middle school. They were wrong though, Hangyul did like fun and surprises.

He met one of the biggest surprises and wacky ideas all wrapped into one crazy package of a person at five in the morning when he was heading to his job.

It was a particularly hot time of the year with even the nights being pretty unbearable. So Hangyul wore a loose sleeve-less T-shirt and ripped jeans to survive the journey through the still silent city lighted by streetlights. He didn't feel like he looked particularly good but there was someone who obviously disagreed.

"Woohoo! What nice arms you have there! Definitely want to rip that shirt off to see the rest!"

Hangyul froze and slowly turned around. The city square was empty save for a few students around the fountain. And one inside it. The fountain was brightly lit and revealed the clearly completely smashed man who was leaning on the stone edge, splashing the water behind him with his legs and trying and failing to whistle in appreciation.

One of his friends shook his head and loudly tried to shush everyone which just made them laugh more. "Seungyoun!" He then called to the man taking a swim. "You can't just catcall people, you creep! Stop making a ruckus and get out of there!" He might have been the least drunk out of the group, but he didn’t sound exactly sober either.

This was followed by a loud booing sound from another of his friends. The fourth tall and lanky one was filming the scene before him on his phone, desperately trying to keep he device steady despite the fact his whole body was shaking with laugher.

The now-named Seungyoun just turned around in the water, hung his head over the edge of the fountain and was now looking at Hangyul upside down and grinning. "I can do whatever I want now! I’m a mer... person! You're all beneath me! Except for that hot guy over there. He can get above me any time!" he smiled brightly in Hangyul's direction and wiggled his eyebrows.

Hangyul came out of his shock and laughed. The group seemed harmless. "Well, then just keep swimming." he showed him a thumbs up and turned to hurry to be on time for his work, still chuckling.

Before he completely left the square the boy in the fountain screamed at him at the top of his lungs. "You're my soulmate!"

Hangyul was in a fantastic mood for the rest of the day.

\-------------------

The group he met that morning was pretty well known in his university, it turned out. Especially Seungyoun. They were a year above his and apparently threw the best parties. But to Hangyul's pleasant surprise, they didn't have that horrible frat boys’ reputation. They were more known as the fun cool types who would colour your hair a neon pink if you fell asleep on their party (Eunsang took it incredibly well and apparently kept the colour for the next few months) and would send a random R-rated fanfiction instead of their school essay and somehow get away with it.

Seungyoun was known as the unpredictable one, always trying something new, not afraid of anything. Hangyul liked that. And honestly considering their first meeting being what it was, he kind of suspected he knew what he would get himself into. Not that he would go out of his way to seek Seungyoun out, but if an opportunity presented itself to get to know him more, Hangyul would take that.

Said opportunity came earlier that he expected, barely two weeks after the fountain catcalling incident. Hangyul didn't visit the university café often (he was on a student budget after all), but today was slightly critical and he was terribly craving some coffee. Most of the seats were taken but luckily Hangyul noticed a familiar figure sitting alone at one of the tables. Seungyoun had a couple of books scattered around on the table, obviously working on something school related but judging by the constant refreshing of his phone and a bored expression, it wasn't that important.

Hangyul made a split second decision. Instead of taking his coffee to sit outside on the fated square by the fountain like he first wanted to, he picked his cup and approached Seungyoun's table. "Sorry, can I sit here? All the tables are full."

Seungyoun looked up at him and after checking the café to confirm that the other was telling the truth he smiled brightly. "Sure thing. There's enough room for both of us." He moved some of his things to make more room.

Hangyul smiled slightly after he noticed that Seungyoun looked him up and down in appreciation (though obviously not recognizing him). Hangyul sat down and maybe slightly regretted he didn’t wear a sleeveless shirt today.

\---------------------

Honestly when Hangyul accepted the invitation from Seungyoun to the party he didn't expect much. Just a regular college party. And while Seungyoun was enjoying himself he also was obviously holding back on the crazy, which was slightly disappointing. His time came though when the group's old childhood friend Wooseok came in and completely took them apart with his stories and cutting remarks. 

After hearing all of that, Hangyul was absolutely positive Seungyoun was the one for him.

The exam week came however and while still continuing his and Seungyoun's sporadic conversations over kakaotalk, he had to focus a little on his education. His love life had to wait or Dohyon might actually finish school before he did. Which would be embarrassing. His brother might be a genius, but he was also fourteen and Hangyul still had some semblance of academic pride.

He was just finishing one final project already giddy from the possibility of finally getting everything over and done with for this semester, when his phone pinged, notifying him of a new message. Hangyul tilted his head in confusion. It was just after midnight. Who would write him this late?

He slowly opened the message from an unknown number.

Seungyoun broke his head. Call him.

Well, that was... strange. But if Hangyul thought about it, quite possible. He didn't exactly know Seungyoun for that long but... yeah, definitely possible.

Hangyul abandoned his project without a second thought (he still had the rest of the week anyway) and called Seungyoun. The phone didn’t even finish it’s first ring before the older picked up.

"Hello? Hangyul?" Seungyoun sounded really happy. Hangyul smirked.

"Hey. You broke your head?"

"... Not that I know of. At least not in the last few months."

"Ah. Good then." Hangyul nodded in satisfaction.

"What are you doing?"

"Was just finishing one last project for school."

"Ah. Are you tired?"

"Not really, no. But a break from the work would be appreciated."

"Want to go eat somewhere then?"

Hangyul checked the time again. "It's almost one in the morning."

"So?"

"... Do you have a place in mind?"

After the first meeting and a first date in the middle of the night for chicken Hangyul was quite certain nothing would be typical with Seungyoun. Or his group of friends. 

Wooseok raised his eyebrows at Hangyul and smirked the next time he saw him and Seungyoun together, looking suspiciously self-satisfied with himself for somebody carried on the back of his boyfriend. Hangyul saved the unknown number in his contacts as Woosatan.

But honestly? He never regretted anything.

\---------------------

"... and that was how we first met!" Seungyoun smiled.

"I still can't believe you first met at a café. It's so oddly... normal for you." Jinhyuk shook his head.

"Why? I am a completely normal person."

"A normal person who thought it would be an awesome idea to give his boyfriend All You Can Eat rave party in a kid pool as the first-year anniversary gift?" Yuvin chuckled.

"... It was a great idea, you know. In theory."

Hyunbin smiled dreamily. "But it's still nice. Meeting just like in the movies."

Seungyoun regained his bright smile. "So romantic, right?"

Hangyul couldn't keep it in any longer as he burst out laughing. "Yeah, romantic first meeting. You're right!"

Wooseok slightly smirked, obviously intrigued. "That sounds like you have quite a different story to tell. Go on."

Seungyoun looked at his boyfriend in confusion. Hangyul kept chuckling. "Oh, not just a story. If I remember correctly Jinhyuk even recorded on his phone the scene of Seungyoun the mer-person swimming in the fountain and calling me his soulmate completely smashed. You still have that video, right?"

"Oh my god! That was you?" Seungyoun laughed in disbelief.

Yohan turned to Jinhyuk with a very serious expression on his face. "Well, do you have the video or not, hyung?"

\-----------------

Hangyul sat down on the couch beside Seungyoun. Seungyoun's mother greeted him nicely if slightly apathetically, not really looking away from her phone. All was pretty good if not slightly awkward. They now just waited for Seungyoun's father to come up from the garage. 

Seungyoun revealed to him (right before they entered the house, asshole) Hangyul was the first one he ever brought home to introduce to his parents. A great way to calm down your boyfriend before bringing him home. Perfect. Seungyoun’s dad will probably think Hangyul’s some kind of bad mafia influence or something.

The door finally opened and Seungyoun's father came in. Hangyul stood up and offered his hand in greeting, determined to make a good first impression. Before he could introduce himself though, Seungyoun's father gripped his hand tight and looked him straight in the eyes.

"Are you sure about this, my boy? He's a menace." he then gestured to his son. Seungyoun behind him gasped in (probably fake) outrage and started protesting. Before he could get going though, he was silenced by a look from his father.

Hangyul looked back at Seungyoun and then shrugged his shoulders and nodded. "That's fair."

Suddenly, Seungyoun's mother looked up from her phone and gasped. She got up from her seat by the table and went straight to Seungyoun. "Oh my goodness, sweetheart! I understand why you brought this one here. You need to definitely keep him!"

Seungyoun's father nodded, looking slightly teary-eyed. Hangyul passed whatever test there was. That was surprisingly easy. Even Seungyoun looked at a loss for words. Hangyul blinked, watching his boyfriend be smothered by his parents, gaping in surprise like a fish. That was a first.

\------------------

Outtake 1

Seungyoun unhappily looked at the blurred video of himself swimming in the fountain loudly singing Under the Sea from Little Mermaid. The guy in the sleeveless T-shirt was there only as an unrecognizable silhouette. No way he could identify him by this shitty video. He was now even more mad at Jinhyuk, who squealed right over the guy's only sentence about how he understood that reference. Unbelievable. 

He was so sure that guy was his soulmate. Looking so hot in the early morning. Walking through the city. Being catcalled by people in fountains. Seungyoun winced. Okay maybe the guy didn't find that part that charming. Maybe he should be more careful about how to approach people he found attractive. Next time.

\-----------------

Outtake 2

Kookheon, Yuvin and Jinhyuk were standing outside a lecture hall, when Seungyoun basically barrelled towards them and almost took Jinhyuk down.

“Guys! Guys!”

Yuvin blinked lethargically at his friend, looking very much still asleep. Next to him, Kookheon made an inquiring noise, face buried in his phone, where he was probably texting Hyunbin. Jinhyuk finally managed to find balance and glared at Seungyoun.

“What? Wait, don’t tell me. You for once managed to finish that assignment for Lit and will not be copying it from me at the last minute.”

Seungyoun gave him a haughty look. “Of course I didn’t, who do you take me for? No, I actually met a guy!”

Yuvin blinked again. “A guy? At a mixed gender university? Wow, what a feat.” 

Seungyoun sniffed. “You barbarians. You know nothing. This wasn’t just any guy. He was a god among men! The peak of hotness!”

Kookheon hummed and nodded along, probably not listening to a word any of them said. Jinhyuk rolled his eyes and started digging in his backpack for Seungyoun’s copy of the homework he printed this morning along with his own. He was such a good friend. Yuvin just scoffed.

“Peak hotness? God among men? Oh please. I bet you Yohan looks much better. Have you even seen him without his shirt on?” At least he looked awake now.

“Your little athlete twink can go bury himself in the garden for all I care! This guy had arms for days!”

When Yuvin looked ready to throw hands at the slight, Jinhyuk stepped between his two friends and slapped the papers into Seungyoun’s chest.

“Ok, you met a guy, he’s hot. What’s your plan, then? And please let’s not fight about who’s crush is hotter. I don’t really feel like repeating freshman year.”

While Yuvin nodded, still looking slightly sullen, Seungyoun all but bounced on his heals. “Let’s throw a party!”

“…We do that like every other week. That’s your plan?”

“Well, yeah, but this one will be cool! We’ll invite the usual crowd, but like, have a smaller thing going on upstairs, and invite only the cool people in our friend circle. And I’m going to invite Hangyul, and Yuvin can invite his athlete twink-“

“You are far more twinkier than he is, asshole!”

“-and Seungwoo and Byungchan and Mingyu and it’s going to be really cool and he will totally want to go out with me after that!”

Jinhyuk opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he didn’t really know what to address first. He settled on a relatively easy target in the end. “If you want to invite Mingyu, Hyeungjun is going to be there too, and if Hyeungjun is going to be there, they’re going to get drunk after two hours with Dongpyo, Minhee, Wonjin and Jungmo. Not a very cool image, a bunch of drunk first and second years.”

Seungyoun pouted. “Oh, right… Ok, Mingyu will be left downstairs with the rest.”

Kookheon finally raised his head. “Hyunbin still has that project, though… I’m gonna miss him.” He frowned and joined Seungyoun in pouting.

Yuvin though seemed to start to like the idea. “Yeah, but you’re the only one in a stable relationship, so shut up and let us get some too. I’m gonna invite Yohan then. It could be pretty cool.” He declared and started digging in his bag until he surfaced back with a victorious smile and a thick rainbow bracelet clutched in his hand.

Jinhyuk shrugged in the end. “Sure. I mean, what could go wrong.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... Theoretically, we should just add Yohan and then one or tw chapters of outtakes. That said, we will first need to finish something first. Please stick with us, despite the probable wait?
> 
> We hope you like the outtakes. They aren't really necessary, but we kinda missed the four of them bickering, so...


	8. The Athlete

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're baaack :D
> 
> Poor Yohan. He had to wait for so long. At least his chapter is the longest? Oh well.
> 
> Anyway, only a chapter of outtakes and bonus scenes remains. Hopefully it will come soon.
> 
> As always, not betad, please let us know about any mistakes in the comments.
> 
> Enjoy :)

When Yohan thought about it he truly did not have a normal childhood. Right from the moment he could coordinate his movement he started training taekwondo. The only other children he at least vaguely talked to were from his taekwondo class and they were usually older than him by at least a few years. At the time and the whole time growing up, he never minded. Never even realised that it wasn't exactly normal. Because he had taekwondo and that took up all his time and thought from the moment he could push out a reasonable sentence from his mouth. He never played with other children, never watched movies, never read books - unless it was necessary for school. He did not have time for any of that.

A big break came when he was seventeen. He had last year of high school in front of him and he suddenly realised that taekwondo wasn't the thing he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Before he noticed it, his love for the sport had faded. And he was suddenly faced with a horrible decision of what to do next, when the only thing he ever thought he was good at was taekwondo.

The other unpleasant thing was his lack of friends. He never truly talked to his peers and this finally showed as everyone in school was discussing their universities, some students even having a job lined up after school. Yohan did not have a plan nor did he have good enough grades to get into a decent university. Right when he started to actually take notice of his surroundings he realised just how much he missed.

So he continued with taekwondo. Fortunately, despite his increasing injuries in the last year he was chosen as a candidate for the national team. And as such he was offered a scholarship at a pretty good university in Seoul. He did have to elect an extra taekwondo activity to keep the scholarship but that did not bother him. While he lost his passion for the sport he still liked it and would forever keep it close to his heart.

The first month of college was incredibly satisfying and disappointing at the same time. He enjoyed the classes and while he might change his major later on, he was now satisfied with trying different subjects.

Disappointing were his relative lack of friends. He knew one of his upperclassman as he was formerly from taekwondo and they trained together for about three years. However even not a very perceptive Yohan could tell that this wasn't exactly a friendship and more of an acquaintance.

Which was maybe a reason that he subconsciously decided to ignore all the signs when it came to Wooseok.

Yohan first met the elder student when he was unable to find his designated classroom. He was confused as he saw none of his peers even near the building. Wooseok was the only other student on the corridor and Yohan immediately ran to him.

"Hey, sorry do you perhaps know where the B4 classroom is?"

The death inducing look that he received might have send other people running away screaming, Yohan however just took it as his new friend either not understanding the question or not hearing him right.

"I'm Yohan and I'm a first-year. I should have a lesson in this building but I don't see any of my classmates and-"

"It's the second floor to the right."

"Oh, great. Thanks! By the way what's your name?" he asked before the other could leave.

"I'm Kim Wooseok." Wooseok stood to his full height and despite being significantly shorter than Yohan, managed to stare down at him.

Yohan just giggled and with an overly familiar pat to the back turned to the stairs. "Nice to meet you. I have to go but see you around, Wooseok-hyung!" he turned around to run to the second floor and missed the utterly confused look on Wooseok's face.

He soon realized the classroom was empty and that there was an email from their professor about a cancelled lesson that wasn’t there that morning. Not having anything to do for the next three hours he decided to try to catch up to his new friend. Wooseok was just leaving the building when Yohan ran up behind him.

"Hey, Wooseok-hyung! The class got cancelled. Are you planning to go to eat somewhere? Can I come with you?"

Wooseok looked positively stunned before just rolling his eyes. "Just don't talk too much."

Yohan smiled widely. "No worries. So, what is your major? What year are you in?"

\------

In the next month or so Yohan sought out Wooseok often. The older did (begrudgingly) reply to his questions and although Yohan was the one who mostly did the talking, Wooseok never told him to shut up or punched him in the face, which was what Yohan was used to from the taekwondo club. 

Wooseok did give him murderous and menacing looks often, but since Yohan once noticed him staring at a butterfly on his notes with something others described as pure hatred, the younger assumed that was just his default expression.

Wooseok was quite sarcastic and maybe often bordered on mean but Yohan didn't mind and more often than not the elder's pointed comment sent him into a fit of giggles. And in the last weeks, Wooseok just sighed sounding almost defeated whenever Yohan joined him.

Which was ridiculous and couldn't be because of Yohan, as the athlete tried to explain to his former taekwondo classmate, because Wooseok would definitely say so, if that was the case.

"No, Yohan, trust me on this. Kim Wooseok doesn't like anybody."

"Why would he talk to me then?" Yohan repeated with a defiant pout.

The first-year was sure that the older was about to say something more before his expression suddenly turned into an almost scared one and with his eyes fixated behind Yohan's shoulder squeaked out a "gotta go!" and quickly left.

Yohan turned around to a bored-looking Wooseok and he wouldn't really bet on it, but he thought there was some dark expression before.

Wooseok looked him up and down almost as if he was looking for any injuries before motioning his head. "What are you doing here? We sit at that table."

Yohan shook his confusion away. He must have imagined something. He then smiled brightly. "Sure, hyung."

From that moment on Yohan thought that Wooseok finally warmed up to him as he even texted him first from time to time and once even paid for his lunch.

\----------

Years and years later they got head-searingly drunk and once there were just the two of them again, Wooseok confessed to him that Yohan was his first true friend because all the other people found his comments too offensive. They then cried together for two hours about their true and beautiful friendship before Yuvin found them. The hangover was worth it. The jokes from their friends were not.

\----------

In the upcoming years Yohan changed his major two times, went on several dates with both boys and girls and overall was enjoying his university life. Sure, Wooseok didn't really like going to the parties with the younger, but he usually caved in after a few hours of persuasion anyway and Yohan didn't do it too often. Yohan was content.

Then the annual college festival came. As a member of the taekwondo dance club he was required to take part in a presentation for their peers so the members would receive the credits for participation and maybe get a few new attendees. For the first time, Yohan was the front and centre of the stage. He was nervous, but Wooseok assured him with a scoff that it was going to be fine.

It turned out to be a lie because about half-way through the show, Yohan noticed a boy in the crowd. And not just any boy. This one was tall, handsome and charming and was staring quite intensely at the performance. He had a cup in his hand and was situated a bit further away from the small podium as if he was just passing by and stayed because something caught his attention.

Yohan always believed in love at first sight and voila - he was right!

Fortunately, because Yohan was so nervous before the performance, he practiced pretty hard, which meant that even if he was distracted his body was moving purely on muscle memory. He still tried his hardest as he forcefully tore his attention away from the hot male. That man had obviously other ideas though, as the next time Yohan noticed him, he moved closer to the stage to get a better view.

There were only two things in Yohan's mind in that moment. One was the realization that the upper half of his uniform was very much open and had probably been like that for quite some time now, which meant he was showing a lot more of his chest than he normally would. The second thing was the idea that since the boy came closer to the stage and the performance was ending, Yohan could totally impress him by some awesome kick.

When he was later crying on Wooseok's shoulder after he fell during the cursed last jump, it was maybe the first time that Wooseok did not have any sarcastic comments and just assured him the heart he made at the audience from the ground was cute and no one thought of him as a failure. He also bought him hot chocolate with marshmallows. That was really nice.

He received the credits, kept his scholarship and got praised by their taekwondo advisor. So it didn't go that badly in the end.

\-----------

It was a week later and Yohan was sitting in the library still occasionally cringing at the memory of his fall, trying and successfully failing to finish one of his essays, when the handsome male who was originally the root of the whole problem casually sat beside him.

"Hi, I'm Yuvin." he offered his hand to shake in greeting.

After a few seconds of dumb staring Yohan eagerly grabbed it. "Uhgnd." Maybe, if he could let out an eloquent word out of his mouth when he was nervous, his life would be easier.

Yuvin brightly smiled at the athlete and waited patiently till Yohan stopped blushing and actually told him his name. "I'm Yohan." he finally whispered and then let go of Yuvin's hand in embarrassment. This was the worst day of his life.

"Hey, I saw your taekwondo performance the other day. And wow, you were really good out there."

"Uh, yeah, thank you. I remember you too." Yep, definitely the worst.

Yuvin smiled charmingly at Yohan. "You know, I would love to chat with you more. Mind giving me your phone number?"

"What-I-No! I mean yes! I mean no!" Yohan cringed at his loud voice but dutifully clicked his number into the other's phone.

Yuvin looked incredibly pleased when he bid Yohan goodbye to join his friend, who was waiting for him by the door. Yohan turned back to his laptop and let out a deep breath. He had to physically keep himself from screaming.

\-----------

Yohan looked on terrified as his mother opened the photo album and started telling a very interested Yuvin all his embarrassing childhood stories.

".. and this is when he received his first official taekwondo uniform. He refused to take it off for three days, even insisting on showering with it." she happily giggled and Yohan blushed as Yuvin cooed at the photo.

Yohan made a noise of protest but that just made his mother look at him with a mischief in her eyes and gave an opportunity for Yuvin to snap another picture. Unbelievable.

The rest however went pretty well. Yuvin was always friendly and well-mannered when he wanted to. Yohan's mother seemed pretty happy with him though she did throw a couple of questions like "what are your intentions with my son". Then she heard about Yuvin's mother and insisted on getting to know her and even got her number from Yuvin. Yohan's little sisters were also fine but mostly just impressed by Yuvin's height (they liked tall people in general).

His father was bit harder to convince. Even before today, Yohan knew that it took his father awhile to get used to the fact that his son quit professional taekwondo, dated both girls and boys and even decided to bring home a boyfriend. He had his serious face on during the whole lunch just asking once about Yuvin's family and not looking that impressed upon finding out they're all lawyers, which seemed to confuse Yuvin a bit.

It made Yuvin slightly more nervous. To Yohan's surprise and dismay though, the main event of that particular problem came after lunch.

Yohan's father took them out to the backyard which was used mainly for training. In Yuvin's defence, he only clapped and smiled (a bit forcefully and nervously) when his father broke several blocks of wood with his fists and then proceeded to behead a figurine with a kick. Yuvin showed a shaky thumbs up when Yohan's sisters started to kick the white severed head around. Yohan's mother smiled brightly at Yuvin, her attitude unchanged.

"Hey, Yuvin, how about some desert?"

When they turned around Yohan threw a stink-eye at his dad, but couldn't say anything when his father suddenly looked so incredibly satisfied with himself and after the desert even smiled at Yuvin.

\-----------

Yohan bit his lip nervously. It was true that he mostly already lost his illusion of his boyfriend's friends being really cool, but maybe this was still too much to ask for. Yohan still wanted to fulfil his wishes of catching up to his childhood in his remaining years of college while he still had at least a resemblance of some free time though.

"Um, guys? Can I ask you something?"

Several pairs of eyes turned to him Hangyul already getting up to turn off the TV after the movie ended.

"Sure thing." Yuvin smiled at him and send a mildly threatening look in the others direction.

"Uh, could we go bowling next time maybe? I've never tried it before."

Jinhyuk blinked. "Sure, why not. We haven't done that in ages, right?"

"The last day of high school if I remember correctly." Kookheon tilted his head in thought.

"Oh! We've been just last month with Dohyonie!" Seungyoun smiled. "And it was pretty good there." Hangyul nodded at his boyfriend's words and started to look for the place on his phone.

Wooseok shrugged. "I can't go on Thursday, otherwise I'm free whenever."

Hyunbin laid his head on Kookheon's lap. "How come you want to try now, Yohan-hyung? You really never went once during high school?" he sounded genuinely curious.

Yohan blushed slightly. "Well, you know how I've trained taekwondo? Because of it I kinda... never really went out. Or played anything. So... I just thought I should do that now."

There were a few seconds of silence.

"Really never played anything? Not even stuff like hide-and-seek."

"No."

"Tag?" "No." "Kick the can?" "Catch?" "Hopscotch?" "No." "Alligator?"

"Can you please stop asking him?" Wooseok sighed. "And what the fuck is an alligator. Wait, I don't wanna know."

"It's a lot of fun you know." Seungyoun smiled.

"I think the Cool game was quite enough for me."

Hangyul then looked up from his phone. "Is Friday okay then? For the bowling?"

Everyone made a noise vaguely resembling an agreement.

Seungyoun then raised his head. "We could then go try to do that orienteering trip in the forest we always wanted."

Jinhyuk's eyes sparkled. "Oh yeah, there is that free week the next month."

Yohan clapped brightly. "That sounds like fun."

Wooseok snorted. "Yeah, dying in the wilderness sounds like a lot of fun."

Yuvin giggled. "It's settled then."

Kookheon smiled brightly at Yohan. "You know, if you have anything else you want to do, don't worry to ask. Better than keep watching dumb movies."

"Hey! Frozen is not dumb!"

"Jinhyuk, this is the fourth time we saw it." Yuvin grimaced

"Because it's a masterpiece, you uncultured dimwits!"

\-----------

“Ok, for this game we need two captains. I can be one, Jinhyuk can be the other.” Seungyoun seemed far too satisfied with himself, when they got to the beach volleyball field, which frankly worried everybody else.

“Come on,” whined Kookheon. “We already split the teams last time. This way we will spend two hours picking everybody and get kicked out of the field when our time is up without a single game like last time.”

“Besides, why am I always the captain, Seungyoun? Come on, let others make the decisions too.”

Seungyoun pouted. “But the two of us are the tallest…” Only to receive a scathing look from Wooseok and Hangyul and a doubtful look from Yuvin. He first stood completely straight and came up to Seungyoun, then pouted and returned back to his giggling boyfriend’s side looking like a kicked puppy. “That’s right, sucker!” Seungyoun hollered, then finally noticed the icy glare from Wooseok and tried to hide behind Hangyul. Who quickly moved away and left him uncovered and undefended.

“No, seriously guys, we set up the teams yesterday, lets just play.” Sighed Jinhyuk and started to move towards the field further away.

“But… Actually, I kinda want to play against Kookheon?” Hyunbin mumbled with a pout. “I always play with him on the team.” 

“Yes, because you always look like starstruck lovers at each other across the field, when you have one another in your field of vision!”

“That’s not true!”

Wooseok gave the bickering trio a deadpan look, took two bottles of water and went over to his boyfriend. They quickly ended up sitting on the ground with Wooseok draping himself across Jinhyuk’s lap as was the norm for them, both seemingly content to sunbath and wait for the rest to decide to start the game.

As Hangyul and Seungyoun entered the small war over who gets to be on which team with Kookheon and Hyunbin, Yuvin tore himself away from the minor fight and turned to Yohan.

“Yeah, sorry. It looks like we won’t play today either.”

Yohan just laughed. “Don’t worry, this is really fun too.”

\-----------

Yohan quickly ran to Seungyoun's and Hangyul's apartment cursing his professor. It was his last year, why did he have to take an extra class? He punched in the code and took off his shoes while trying to catch his breath. He heard the laugher from the living room. They started without him! Traitors!

Yuvin’s head poked out of the door and smiled. “Hey, love. You okay there?”

Yohan sighed, nodded and greeted his boyfriend with a kiss. “Yeah, I am. What did I miss?”

Yuvin rolled his eyes. “Wooseok is now playing for Jinhyuk’s barbarian, after his third magician died a horrible death in a ravine. It seems to be a touchy subject, so careful. Hyunbin gained another magical artefact, which is a fifth one this week and it’s so not fair. And we are now in a room with three bottles of liquid and apparently we need to drink one. Kookheon looks too satisfied with himself for it to be nothing, so…”

Yohan blinked at him. “You’ve been playing for half an hour. How? We didn’t even manage to leave the town last time.”

Yuvin shrugged and chuckled, pulling his boyfriend into their seats. “Who the hell knows.”

Kookheon passed Yohan his character sheet with a grin too big for comfort. “Yohan, there’s a yellow, red and blue potion, which one do you want to try?”

Yohan chuckled, but didn’t answer. Next to him, Hangyul frowned. “The yellow is definitely pee; I’m not drinking that one.”

From the annoyed frown on their dungeon master’s face, he guessed right. Wooseok next to him made a disgusted face.

“Ew, that’s so gross! And here I thought we would have to drink all of them. You nasty!”

Kookheon suddenly smirked. “You really thought that? What’s your character intelligence score again?”

Wooseok pulled the character sheet with little Olaf’s on the sides closer to himself. “Leave him alone, he’s slightly slow, not a vegetable.” His hand caressed his boyfriend’s side as he said this, which gained him a non-plussed look from Jinhyuk.

“You trying to make me take my not-yet dead character back?” As Wooseok turned to give him a sweet not-at-all manipulative kiss, Seungyoun made a thoughtful noise.

“I think it’s the red one. I’m gonna drink the red one.”

Hangyul next to him nodded resolutely. “Yeah, thought so too. Looks like the safest choice.”

Hyunbin frowned. “I would have gone for the blue one, to be honest. If the yellow is really pee, I would guess the red is blood, or something equally gross.”

Seungyoun shook his head. “Nope, I’m pretty sure it’s the red one. Blue is too weird. Red could be strawberry juice. I like strawberries. So, one two three?”

Hangyul nodded and both of them turned to Kookheon, dices prepared in case they needed them. Their dungeon master just gave them a sour look. “As you down the red potion, you feel an inner warmth and a golden door opens to your left.”

The pair high-fived. Yohan chuckled.

“Wait, if the red is the key and the yellow is pee, what was the blue one.”

Kookheon frowned. “Well, if you wouldn’t be a bunch of spoil-sports, it would give Seungyoun donkey ears.”

His friend turned to him with a betrayed look. “Whyyy?”

Kookheon sent him a shrug, looking unbothered.

Hyunbin frowned. “Guys, maybe we should find another activity soon. I’m a bit afraid Kookheonie is having a bit of a power-trip.”

“No, I’m not, I gave you all the pretty jewelry!”

“Yes, and I’m sleeping with you. You killed Wooseok’s character twice just this session, once with a falling piano.”

Kookheon pouted. Yohan perked up. “Actually guys, there’s a new place in town that has a jungle gym!”

The guys exchanged looks. Wooseok sighed. “How old are we again?”

Jinhyuk next to him smirked. “I think it’s my turn to set this up. Is this weekend good for everybody?”

The room filled with sounds of assent, Wooseok’s maybe a little sullen.


End file.
